re: LSU #2 overall 2013 bb recruiting rankings

If you can get talent, no matter how bad you coach.. you can still be competitive which is a far cry from what LSU has been in the past few years. So if JJ can coach, which I believe his records at north texas with much less talent indicates, we are in for a nice surprise in the next couple of years.

Who would of thought that less than 1 year removed from the TJ era, we are ranked ahead of Duke in recruiting? crazy.

This is refreshing but BBall rankings don't work the same as football. 1 player can make/break a bball team. If you're not Kentucky, you're likely only replacing 3-4 players a year, so some teams don't have any guys in a class.

quote:This is refreshing but BBall rankings don't work the same as football. 1 player can make/break a bball team. If you're not Kentucky, you're likely only replacing 3-4 players a year, so some teams don't have any guys in a class

bottom line is, LSU is bringing in talent which is the opposite of the last 3-5 years.

quote:I'm still baffled at how he was able to get all these guys to commit. Completely baffled.

One guy (Odah) was already committed to JJ at N.Tex before he took the LSU job.

Another guy (Martin) is from BR.

Another guy (Mickey) has a brother that plays on LSU's football team. James Wright

That's 3 of 5 right there with significant connections to either JJ, Baton Rouge and/or LSU.

The other 2, especially the kid from Georgia, are nice pulls. LSU doesn't have a bad basketball history. It's 2nd (albeit a distant second) only to UK in SEC championships. Plus LSU is short (both figureatively and literally) on players, so all 5 guys almost assuredly will play significant minutes right away.

It's the Dale Brown approach to recruiting. Try to get the best player or two in La. Get one or two from some of the larger cities (Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, etc.) Then get one or two regional (i.e. Mississippi, East Tex.)/foreign players.

quote:That's 3 of 5 right there with significant connections to either JJ, Baton Rouge and/or LSU

Don't discount the effort to get those guys though. Having those connections is one thing, actually acting on them is another. Martin wouldn't have been in this class if Trent were still here. Who knows on Mickey, no one knew he was even related to James Wright until Jones started recruiting him.

quote:Don't discount the effort to get those guys though. Having those connections is one thing, actually acting on them is another. Martin wouldn't have been in this class if Trent were still here. Who knows on Mickey, no one knew he was even related to James Wright until Jones started recruiting him.

I certianly don't mean to discount the staff's effort in recruiting those guys. But I don't see how it's "baffling" that LSU was able to sign those guys. I give the staff complete credit. They identified guys who were excellent players who happened to have certian LSU/BR specific connections, and pounced on the opportunity to bring them into the program. The last staff failed to do that, and with the way things were going it may have been 2015 before LSU returned to the NCAAT

i've heard from more than one person that the former staff would get very defensive when the topic of recruiting was brought up by the media. the only way we'd know who was a target was by reading kids saying that they were interested in LSU. this staff knows that fans want to know. it's perfectly fine to keep some stuff close to the vest, especially if you're winning ball games but when you have 2 of the worst seasons in school history, fans want to know that there is hope on the horizon, especially when it comes to bringing in talent.

And it seems they are doing a great job of "leaking" the right info and doing it in such a way that they're routinely in the news cycle, which is going to pay long term dividends in both recruiting and getting people in the PMAC.